All right, welcome back to The Daily Mastermind, George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. And today I want to talk to you about your thoughts. See, most of the problems that you face as an entrepreneur are not actually problems at all. They're thoughts, illusions that your mind convinces you are real. And the truth is, it's not your business holding you back. It's your actual thinking. And we're going to dig into that today. So I appreciate you joining me. Just real quick, I'll give you a little bit of an update. We had a great little trip this weekend. Michelle and I decided to go down to Las Vegas. We were able to go to The Sphere. I don't know if you guys have checked out The Sphere before or seen it online, but it's a pretty epic entertainment center. We saw The Wizard of Oz. It was a great show on the big screen. They had all kinds of interactive stuff going on, but, you know, just really made me think, you know, as busy as life gets, as busy as you are and all the things you have, there's probably never going to be a time that you're on top of everything. If you're a high, you know, high achieving driven entrepreneur or business owner, you're going to always have something going on. So you've got to take some time to really enjoy the moments. And that's what I try to do the last couple of days on the weekend. And it really does give you that time to refresh. It really makes me think a lot about the episodes I've done on the corporate athlete and how professional athletes will really prioritize recovery and, you know, things that will help them in order to train. Because when you stress your muscles or you stress your strengths, you get worn down and it's in the recovery that you grow. And here we are as, you know, business owners and entrepreneurs and athletes, and we don't take that time for recovery. So I can't really recommend that enough. So let's talk today. Let's get back into this episode. And, you know, remember that the whole reason I do the Daily Mastermind is to help you to really increase those areas of your life. Stay consistent in your mind, body, money, business, and lifestyle. But more importantly, find clarity, confidence, and direction in building the best life and business that you want to have. So what I want to do over the next couple of days is I want to highlight a book that I read recently called Don't Believe Everything You Think. by Joseph Nguyen. And this book really digs into this fascinating truth that so much of our stress and anxiety and frustration that we experience in life doesn't come from our actual circumstances. And I think you'd agree if you think about it. It actually comes from our thoughts about how circumstances evolve in our life, right? So as entrepreneurs, this is pretty critical. We live in a world of uncertainty and decisions and high stakes and yet most of the obstacles we face aren external They internal And in this book it explains that the way we think about challenges is often the very thing creating the suffering the hesitation the doubt that keeps us from moving forward I think what turned me on to this book is I heard a podcast by Joe Rogan where, you know, he kind of explained that this was a real eye-opener for him, and it was for me as well. So in this episode, in this first episode, because I want to do this over the next couple, three days, we're going to explore today the three core insights from the book that are especially relevant for entrepreneurs. The first one being that the nature of thought itself, why your thoughts are not reality. And the second thing I want to talk about is the illusion of control, why overthinking gives you this false sense of certainty or control. And then finally, we'll talk a little bit about the stress and overthinking process, how we create unnecessary suffering beyond the real challenges that we face. So let's kind of dive in on this. This first area I want to talk to you about is the nature of thought. And I don't think a lot of times we really stop to process this, but one of the most powerful ideas in this book is the realization that thoughts are not reality. They're not reality. They're simply interpretations of reality, and they're the things that, they're kind of the stories that we tell ourselves, the assumptions we make, the projections of fear or hope. And as entrepreneurs, we often take our thoughts as absolute truth. You know what I mean? For example, I might fail if I launch this project. That's not really reality. That's a possibility that your mind is creating, and reality itself is pretty neutral. You either launch or you don't. Customers either respond or they don't. But the story that you, in your mind, that your mind tells you is something that, ah, man, it just really overwhelms you at times. And so, you know, when this distinction is made, it's pretty critical because when we believe every thought that we have, we give away our power to really be decisive. Thoughts like, you know, I'm not good enough, or it's too risky, or this will never work. Those are all things that really become barriers to you being successful, not because they're true, but because we act as if they're true. Does that make sense? You know, this book reminds me so often that, you know, your thoughts are not you. They're not fact. They're fleeting patterns in your mind, no more than clouds, you know, drifting across the sky. And when you see them that way, they actually stop ruling your decisions and your actions. And so it's super important that we understand sort of the nature of thoughts themselves as not being real And then it leads us to this second area of the illusion of control that we get from our thoughts And I really had this happen in my life so I want you to really think through this as I talk about it You know a trap that entrepreneurs fall into is this whole illusion of control. You know, we convince ourselves that if we think long enough and we plan hard enough or we analyze deep enough that we will create certainty around situations. But the reality is thinking doesn't create certainty. It just creates the illusion of certainty. How many times have you spent weeks perfecting a plan, you know, or days and days trying to come up with the best solution only to have the market change or a competitor enter and, you know, knock you out of your spot or a, you know, a customer responds differently than you expected. You know, overfeeling or overthinking makes you feel safe, but it often keeps us from actually taking the action that leads to the real learning. Think about that for a minute. You know, in entrepreneurship, speed and agility and adaptability are usually way more valuable than perfect planning. You've heard me say this over and over and over again, fail five times faster. You know, the point here is that the mind uses overthinking as a way to try and control the uncontrollable. But in life and business, we always are going to have uncertainty. And instead of exhausting ourselves and our energy and all of our talent, you know, trying to control outcomes with our thoughts, we're so much better served by acting, testing, and adapting. Because true clarity doesn't come from thinking more. It comes from doing more and learning from reality. And as the saying goes, you can't steer a parked car, right? So it's very important that we don't fall into this illusion of control that our thoughts give us. And then the last thing I want to mention here is just the serious degree of stress that overthinking does for you. You know, this book that I read, it makes this important distinction between challenge and suffering. Challenge, challenges are real. You know, the cash flow problem, the difficult client, the new competitor, but suffering is created when we overlay those challenges with layers of negative thinking. Does that make sense? So the challenge might be, look, we have a low amount of sales this month, But the suffering comes when we say if this continues we going to go under Everyone going to lose their jobs You know I a failure I never going to recover You see how that suffering adds in and makes the stress so much more I sure you can relate to that You know the first part is reality You know you have low sales or you have low cash flow The second part that suffering part it entirely thought And entrepreneurs are especially prone to this because we operate under high stakes and constant uncertainty in our mind You know, the truth is stress doesn't come from the situation. It comes from how we interpret it. And our minds are constantly trying to add certainty to an uncertain world. So when you stop believing every catastrophic thought that your mind throws at you, you begin to separate, you know, the real challenges from the unnecessary suffering. And when you make that distinction, you can address problems with clarity, creativity, resilience, far more than addressing your problems with fear. So what have we talked about today? First of all, thoughts are not real. They're literal stories. They're not facts, and you've got to recognize that the process of thinking is the problem. And then overthinking creates this illusion of control because certainty will not come from thinking it to death. It comes from action. And finally, stress is an optional thing. Challenges are real, for sure, but suffering is thought-created. Your suffering is thought-created. And so I really love this book, Don't Believe Everything You Think, because it's a powerful reminder that a lot of what holds us back in business and in life isn't external, it's internal. And it's not the market, it's the economy, or even, you know, things that are actually there that are making a difference for us. And so, you know, look, it's the way we think about things that will determine the results in our life. So the question that I would ask you today, and I want to kind of close this episode out is, what challenges in your business right now are you facing that maybe are being made worse by the way you're thinking about them? What challenges in your business and in your life are you facing that might be being made worse by the way that you're thinking about them? And I want you to really think about that because this is the first part of this, you know, two or three days I want to cover it. And in the next episode, we're going to dive into how your identity and your personal belief systems affect your thoughts, which are, you know, even your identity and belief systems are just thoughts. But how are they holding you back as an entrepreneur? So that's what we're going to talk about tomorrow. In the meantime, I want to encourage you to share this episode. It would mean the world to me, and I think it would help others as well. Share this episode, you know, with at least one person and hit me up on The Daily Mastermind. Let me know what you're working on. Let me know what you're struggling with. What are you winning at? Let's celebrate some wins. And I look forward to talking with you more tomorrow. Once again, this has been the Daily Mastermind. I appreciate you being here and I'll talk to you soon.
